Monday, August 13, 2012

In September 2009, Simon Jung and Paul & Hanno Schweizer painted a
songbird over 4 storeys of a building in Naples, known throughout Italy
as a stronghold for drug dealing. In this text the three artists
describe the situation in Naples’s “problem area”, how they gained
access to the neighbourhood and made contact with its inhabitants and
what prompted them to undertake their project “Goldfinch”.

Naples, capital of the province of Campania, is faced with the same
problems as many other areas in Southern Italy: corruption and the
prevalence of mafia-like structures characterise economics and politics
while society is plagued by high unemployment. No improvement is in
sight: government and EU subsidies trickle away or are wasted on absurd
building projects.

It would be difficult to find another area where these complex
problems are more manifest than in Scampia. The neighbourhood was built
from the 1970s to 1990s on the northern outskirts of Naples. 62,000
people are registered as residents of Scampia’s 4 square kilometres;
50-75% of the working population are unemployed.

Ever since Roberto Saviano’s book “Gomorra” became a bestseller and
was filmed by Matteo Garrone, this neighbourhood has become famous in
Italy and beyond as a gigantic drug market and scene of untold violent
crimes. The lack of legal employment forces adolescents and young men to
earn their money as look-outs or drug couriers. Many of them end up
imprisoned or shot dead before they come of age.

Over the years one particular building complex in the heart of
Scampia became a symbol of malevita, violent crime and drug dealing in
Southern Italy. Anyone who has the means to do so, moves away from these
high-rise blocks, known as vele (sails) because of their triangular
shape.

Streetartandgraffiti.blogspot.com is not going to exhort the illegal writing, but shows only a preexisting phenomenon.The artists's material is sent to us in anonymous form. We hold the right to be contacted by the artists in presence of copyrighted photos or in case of recommendations.